You know I’ve been working on it, and those of you who saw me on book tour this summer got the scoop, but the stars have finally aligned and I can officially make the announcement: Harcourt has signed me on to do two more books in the Enchanted series!!!

And there was much rejoicing.

*snoopy dance*

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PRESS RELEASE:

Alethea Kontis, New York Times bestselling co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter Companion and bestselling author of the AlphaOops! series of picture books, saw her debut novel, Enchanted, launch early this May and instantly garner the coveted Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award. Hot on the heels of Enchanted‘s breakout success, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt offered Kontis a nice, two-book deal to further the fairy tale adventures of the Woodcutter sisters. The books, tentatively entitled Hero and Beloved, will follow the lives of sisters Saturday and Friday, respectively. HMH plans to release the titles in the fall of 2013 and 2014.

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Ideally, of course, there will be seven book in the series, one about each sister. PLEASE KEEP BUYING THEM SO I CAN STAY IN PRINT!! xox

The men had paused in their taunting to follow Thursday’s next move. Saturday squared herself on the deck again and readjusted her two-handed grip on the sword.

“I suppose the gloves come off now.” Thursday smiled and launched herself into the air.

Saturday wasn’t quite sure where her sister was going with this–overboard?–until she noticed Ashes high up in the rigging. The girl leaned down and caught Thursday’s arm up to her elbow in what must have been a practiced trick. Thursday flew through the air like a bright wingless mollymawk and landed on a stack of crates with the sun directly behind her.

I heard from a little birdie friend of mine that Sir Terry Pratchett might be making a guest appearance at Capclave. It was perfect timing, right after my reading, and I would be free for a few hours to hang out.

I had been waffling about this particular reading, since most of the folks who attend Capclave are also members of WSFA, and it was to them that I did my very first dramatic reading of “The Monster & Mrs. Blake.” I’ve performed that reading now a few times…but no matter how good I’ve gotten at it, I didn’t want to do it again for the same audience.

My great thought was that I would read “The Unicorn Hunter,” since I still maintain it’s the best story I’ve ever written. (It’s still available for free to read here, if you’re in the mood to quibble.) But when I started practicing this one, it just didn’t come across as a good read-aloud. For one, I couldn’t get the demon’s voice right. My range was bouncing all over the place. It was terrible.

I’d heard someone mention a great panel they attended once where the panelists brought poetry and prose they had written when they were in high school and shared that. Why not? So I had my little blue book with me, the one with the gilded pages, and I was going to make a fool of myself in front of a bunch of people because I hadn’t prepared anything else.

Then suddenly, Terry Pratchett’s visit was announced. He was only going to be at the convention for an hour, and the time had been pushed up to RIGHT during my reading, so that he could catch a plane back to the UK. The entire convention closed up shop and gathered in the main auditorium. No one came to see me. I waited until Sir Terry and my friend walked by, and then I followed in their wake to attend the talk as well.

So yes, folks, back in October, this Princess was saved by an honest-to-god Knight. And I can’t believe I forgot to tell you.

Here is the very nice video Scott shot of the whole talk. It’s an hour long, but well worth the time.

I’m very glad I attended. It made me laugh and touched my heart to be part of such a wonderful community, and such a fantastic visit with such an icon in such an intimate setting. (Muches of suchness!) It was so very interesting to hear Sir Terry speak of the assisted suicide that he took part in for the BBC. What I didn’t realize was how personal the discussion would be for me.

If you remember, back in July I posted about visiting my beautiful grandmother who is in hospice with Alzheimer’s. She’s been there a very long time. I’m sure she doesn’t recognize us. She doesn’t really even speak in words anymore. She looks good, and seemed happy, but she scares quite easily because nothing is familiar to her anymore. It scares me to think of what it would be like to live like that…but I suppose if it got to that point I wouldn’t be cognizant of what I’d lost…not that it makes the situation better.

Once upon a time, I’m not sure I would have supported something like Sir Terry is deciding to do with his death. I would have called it cowardly. And yet, I wonder what my grandmother would have decided had she been given such a choice back when she had the ability to make choices. Of course I don’t want my grandmother to leave this world. But it’s times like these–especially over the holidays–that I miss her so much and hate…well…you know.

I’ve been working on the sequel to Sunday’s book–it’s about Saturday, of course. Her hero is a young man whose father succumbed to an illness like Alzheimer’s (though it would have been closer to dementia in fairy tale land). How would an illness like this affect our hero’s life? What would he be afraid of? And, conversely, what would he not be afraid of?

Through these questions I am forced to find answers…both about Peregrine and myself.

Oh, how art imitates life…and how beautiful and unfair life can be, all at the same time.

I’ve decided, for my own personal writing well-being, to take a page from Cherie Priest’s book and start posting my writing metrics. This will not only keep me accountable for my writing, but it will also pave the way for YOU GUYS to kick me in the butt when I seriously need it.

I also posted about this on the Waterworld Mermaids site today, and challenged the other Mermaids to do the same for the rest of the month, at least.